This title is no longer available from Rhino Handmade.
However, numbered copies from the original edition may be available at select retailers.
An individually numbered, limited edition of 4,500 copies from Rhino Handmade.
THE MONKEES
Headquarters Sessions
From the group’s pre-fab inception, The Monkees’ albums were the brainchild music industry veteran Don Kirshner. The Monkees started out being actors playing the parts of musicians singing songs written by and selected for them by others. They supplied the singing voices to music performed by session players.
In 1967, this changed. After a series of creative tug-of-wars, Kirshner was out of the picture and Michael Nesmith, Peter Tork, Davy Jones and Micky Dolenz were -for the first time ever- given creative control over the making of a Monkees album. They now found themselves at RCA Studio C in Hollywood as a working band, just as they had always been on the small screen. And the album they were about to create, Headquarters, would be released on May 20, 1967; a month later it would hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, and remain in the Top Ten for almost three months.
The Monkees Headquarters Sessions is an 84-track 3-CD set which contains 60 previously unreleased recordings and which also includes the complete original mono mixes of the album on compact disc for the first time anywhere. Researched and compiled by longtime Monkee maniacs Andrew Sandoval and Bill Inglot, Headquarters Sessions collects almost four hours of unique audio insight into the recording of this Monkee milestone. It includes almost three-and-one-half-hours of alternate takes, demos, backing tracks, and recording session audio hijinx never before preserved on compact disc.
We’ve combed through all of the known surviving Headquarters session reels -both complete and intermediate mixes- to assemble a strikingly cohesive peek into The Monkees’ inner workings as a finally unencumbered creative entity and as the genuine -if sometimes still learning- musicians that they were. To this end, Headquarters Sessions includes only recordings from those sessions where the band had control over all aspects of the recording process and where they played most, if not all, of the instruments. The 3-CD set collects all of the vocal masters from these sessions that were not included on the original stereo album as well as all of the surviving vocal demos and a few tracks with vocals which were never completed.
However, the beefy middle of this tasty digital triple-decker is the collection of previously unreleased instrumental backing track sessions (both for familiar and previously unknown compositions), rehearsals, spoken word oddities, and studio chatter. And to top it all off, the original mono masters are presented in an initially proposed, but ultimately unused, running order. All contained in a gatefold digipack with a 40-page booklet filled with photographs, a contemporaneous day-to-day chronology, track notes as well as interesting ephemera. Headquarters Sessions is sure to make you a believer.
Headquarters Sessions is available as an individually numbered limited edition of 4,500 copies.
TRACK LIST
- She’s So Far Out, She’s In (Tracking Session Takes 1 & 2)
- The Girl I Knew Somewhere (First Version) (Tracking Session Composite Takes 1 to 16)
- The Girl I Knew Somewhere (First Version) (Master Backing Track Take 22)
- All Of Your Toys (Rehearsal)
- All Of Your Toys (Tracking Session Composite Takes 1 to 10)
- All Of Your Toys (Master Backing Track Take 20 Mono Mix)
- The Girl I Knew Somewhere (Second Version) (Tracking Session Composite Featuring Take 15)
- The Girl I Knew Somewhere (Second Version) (Tracking Overdub Session Takes 1 & 2)
- The Girl I Knew Somewhere (Second Version) (Master Backing Track Take 13A)
- Seeger’s Theme (Demo)
- Can You Dig It (Demo)
- Nine Times Blue (Demo Vocal)
- Until It’s Time For You To Go (Demo Vocal)
- She’ll Be There (Demo Vocal)
- Midnight Train (Demo Vocal)
- Sunny Girlfriend (Acoustic Remix Of Master Vocal)
- Sunny Girlfriend (Tracking Session Take 7 With Scratch Vocal)
- Mr Webster (Tracking Session Take 28)
- Band 6 (Stereo Master)
- Setting Up The Studio For Randy Scouse Git
- Randy Scouse Git (Tracking Session Composite)
- Randy Scouse Git (Alternate Version Take 18 Vocal)
- You Told Me (Master Backing Track)
- Monkee Chat (Studio Dialogue)
- You Told Me (Take 15 With Rough lead Vocal)
- Zilch (Peter Tork Vocal Track Spoken Word)
- Zilch (Davy Jones Vocal Track Spoken Word)
- Zilch (Micky Dolenx Vocal Track Spoken Word)
- Zilch MICHAEL NESMITH VOCAL TRACK SPOKEN WORD
- I’ll Spend My Life With You (Master Backing Track Take 9)
- Randy Scouse Git (Master Backing Track Take 23)
- Forget That Girl (Rehearsal)
- Forget That Girl (Master Backing Track)
- Where Has It All Gone (First Version) (Tracking Session Take 1)
- Memphis Tennessee
- Twelve-String Improvisation
- Where Has It All Gone (Second Version) (Master Basic Track Take 12)
- Jericho
- Forget That Girl (Rough Backing Vocals)
- Peter Gunn’s Gun
- I Was Born In East Virginia (Informal Recording Vocal)
- Forget That Girl (Rejected Overdub Session Vocal)
- Randy Scouse Git (Alternate Mix With Unused Tag Vocal)
- Micky In Carlsbad Cavern (Studio Dialogue)
- Pillow Time (Take 1 Vocal)
- Shades Of Gray (Master Backing Track Take 9B)
- Masking Tape (Tracking Session Composite Takes 6 To 8)
- You Just May Be The One (Tracking Session Composite)
- You Just May Be The One (Master Backing Track)
- No Time (First Version) (Tracking Session Composite Takes 3 To 5)
- Blues (Excerpt)
- I Can’t Get Her Off My Mind (Master Backing Track)
- Banjo Jam (Excerpt)
- Cripple Creek
- Six-String Improvisation
- The Story Of Rock And Roll (First Version) (Tracking Session Take 23)
- Early Morning Blues And Greens (Master Backing Track)
- Two-Part Invention In F Major (Informal Recording)
- The Story Of Rock And Roll (Second Version) (Tracking Session Take 5A)
- Don’t Be Cruel
- For Pete’s Sake (Master Backing track)
- No Time (Second Version) (Tracking Session Composite)
- No Time (Second Version) (Master Backing Track Take 7A)
- Just A Game (Demo Takes 1 To 3)
- Fever
- Sunny Girlfriend (Master Backing Track)
- No Time (Second Version) (Master Take 7A With Backing Vocals)
- All Of Your Toys (Mono Master)
- The Girl I Knew Somewhere (First Version) (Mono Master)
- For Pete’s Sake (Mono Master)
- I’ll Spend My Life With You (Mono Master)
- Forget That Girl (Mono Master)
- You Just May Be The One (Mono Master)
- Shades Of Gray (Mono Master)
- Band 6 (Mono Master)
- Sunny Girlfriend (Mono Master)
- Mr Webster (Mono Master)
- You Told Me (Mono Master)
- The Girl I Knew Somewhere (Second Version) (Mono Master)
- 29. Zilch (Mono Master)
- Early Morning Blues And Greens (Mono Master)
- Randy Scouse Git (Mono Master)
- I Can’t Get Her Off My Mind (Mono Master)
- No Time (Mono Master)